TRADE  WITH  BRITISH  AMERICA. 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  W.  D.  KELLEY,  OF  PENNSYLVANIA, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  MARCH  7.  1866. 


The  House,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 
state  of  the  Union,  having  under  consideration  the 
hill  CHf-R.  No.  337)  regulating  trade  with  the  British 
North  American  possessions— 

Mr;  KELLEY  said: 

Mr.  Chairman  :  If  I  had  made  my  remarks 
yesterday  afternoon,  I  should  have  added  an¬ 
other  to  the  many  illustrations  I  have  given 
this  session  of  the  mistake  made  by  the  gentle¬ 
man  from  Illinois  [Mr.  "Wentworth]  when  he 
said  I  never  took  less  than  an  hour  when  I  got 
the  floor,  for  I  am  quite  sure  that  twenty  min¬ 
utes  would  then  have  sufficed  me.  But  I  have 
had  a  night  in  which  to  examine  the  provisions 
of  this  bill  and  to  reflect  upon  them,  and  I 
shall  probably  ask  the  attention  of  the  House 
for  a  longer  period  this  morning. 

I  would  have  been  satisfied  yesterday  with 
the  amendment  proposed  by  the  distinguished 
gentleman  from  Maryland  [Mr.  F.  Thomas] 
coupled  with  one  or  two  others.  To-day,  how¬ 
ever,  this  will  not  satisfy  me.  Sir,  the  bill 
should  be  rejected.  It  is  false  in  principle  and 
in  detail,  and  will  materially  diminish  the  rev¬ 
enues  of  the  country  by  suspending  several  im¬ 
portant  branches  of  our  industry.  As  I  conned 
its  sections  I  became  doubtful  of  its  origin ; 
whether  it  was  of  British  or  American  concep¬ 
tion.  There  are  many  of  its  features  which 
constrain  me  to  think  that  it  is  of  foreign  and 
not  of  American  origin.  I  point  gentlemen  to 
the  ninth  section.  Its  authors  seem  to  have 
been  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  we  are  still  liv¬ 
ing  under  democratic-republican  institutions, 
and  have  not  yet  fallen  t.nder  a  dictatorship. 


The  ninth  section  confides  the  regulation  of 
all  the  commerce  that  may  grow  up  between 
the  United  States  and  the  British  Provinces  to 
the  absolute  and  unrestricted  control  of  the 
President.  Let  me  astound  gentlemen  who 
have  not  examined  the  bill  by  reading  thpA 
portion  of  the  section  to  which  I  refer: 

Sec.  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  the  President 
is  hereby  authorized  to  terminate  or  suspend  the  pro¬ 
visions  of  this  act,  or  any  section  or  sections  thereof, 
and  as  to  the  whole  or  part  of  the  British  North  Amer¬ 
ican  colonies,  by  giving  public  notice  of  such  termina¬ 
tion  or  suspension,  whenever  in  his  opinion  it  may 
appear  just  and  proper,  &c. 

Sir,  such  power  may  be  exercised  by  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  in  regard  to  the  commerce 
of  his  empire ;  but  such  power,  regulating  the 
trade  of  this  country  according  to  his  caprice, 
has  never  been  confided  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  or  will  be  confided  to  one  while 
the  American  people  remain  free. 

Mr.  ROGERS.  Will  the  gentleman  allow 
me  to  ask  him  a  question? 

Mr.  KELLEY.  I  would  rather  not  now. 
The  gentleman  knows  my  time  is  limited. 

Mr.  ROGERS.  I  wanted  to  ask  the  gentle¬ 
man  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Kelley]  if  this 
bill  gives  the  President  any  more  power  than 
was  proposed  to  be  given  to  him  by  the  Freed- 
men’s  Bureau  bill? 

Mr.  KELLEY.  I  have  no  time  for  side 
issues  now.  I  will  answer  that  question  some 
time  when  my  distinguished  friend  has  the  floor 
and  kindly  yields  to  me.  [Laughter.] 

Sir,  this  bill  is  of  a  piece  with  others  now 
pending  before  this  House.  It  is  like  the  loan 
bill,  which  proposes  to  contract  the  business  of 


2 


the  country  to  the  narrow  dimensions  it  filled 
before  the  war,  and  to  give  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  while  he  has  an  average  balance  of 
$40,000,000  lying  on  deposit  in  the  banks,  the 
power  to  control  the  currency  of  the  country, 
to  contract  or  expand  it  as  he  will.  It  is  also 
in  this  respect  like  the  postal  bill,  which,  as  an 
inducement  to  the  people  to  buy  their  envelopes 
from  Government  employes  or  contractors,  pro¬ 
poses  to  give  one  free  of  cost  to  every  man  who 
buys  a  postage  stamp. 

Sir,  when  I  regard  this  feature  of  the  bill,  I 
feel  that  its  paternity  may  have  been  American, 
that  it  may  have  emanated  from  the  Adminis¬ 
tration.  But  when  I  consider  its  provisions  in 
reference  to  trade,  and  see  how  well  they  are 
calculated  to  prostrate  many  of  the  leading 
interests  of  the  country;  the  advantages  it 
secures  to  foreign  commodities  which  compete 
with  the  productions  of  our  laboring  people  ; 
how  it  stimulates  the  development  of  the  re¬ 
sources  of  the  British  Provinces,  and  induces 
emigration  to  them,  while  it  restricts  the  devel¬ 
opment  of  our  resources,  and  is  calculated  to 
divert  immigration  from  our  shores ;  when  I 
see  all  this,  I  say,  I  feel  that  the  Canadian 
tainistry  must  have  concocted  this  bill. 

Mr.  CONKLING.  I  would  like  to  ask  the 
gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  Kelley]  a 
question  pertinent  to  what  he  is  now  saying. 

Mr.  KELLEY.  I  would  rather  not  yield 
now,  having  just  declined  to  yield  to  the  gen¬ 
tleman  from  New  Jersey,  [Mr.  Rogers.] 

I  know,  Mr.  Chairman,  how  hard  it  is  to 
break  away  from  habit,  to  escape  from  estab¬ 
lished  usage ;  and  I  remember  that  for  more 
than  ten  years,  under  the  fraudulently  named 
reciprocity  treaty,  we  have  had  our  habits, 
usages,  and  modes  of  thought  controlled  by  the 
infamous  provisions  of  that  treaty ;  and  it  may 
be  that  their  influence  has  controlled  the  com¬ 
mittee  that  presented  this  bill.  But,  sir,  noth¬ 
ing  is  more  certain  than  that  had  we  never 
had  that  treaty  we  never  would  have  had  this 
bill ;  it  is  its  legitimate  offspring,  and  embodies 
many  of  the  worst  vices  of  its  parent. 

Sir,  what  was  that  treaty?  It  was  conceived 
in  iniquity  and  executed  in  sin.  It  was  one  of 
the  master-strokes  of  policy  of  the  sagacious  and 
recklessly  ambitious  men  who  had  even  then 
determined  to  destroy  our  country.  Its  object 


was  to  enfeeble  and  impoverish  the  North,  and 
to  strengthen  the  Provinces  of  our  most  power¬ 
ful  enemy,  that  bound  the  whole  line  of  our 
northern  frontier.  It  was  the  result  of  a  delib¬ 
erate  conspiracy,  the  first  object  of  which  was 
to  give  the  American  market  to  foreign  manu¬ 
facturers,  by  destroying  every  leading  branch  of 
American  manufactures ;  and  the  second  was, 
when  they  had  attained  the  first,  to  prostrate 
the  grain-growers  and  provision-producers  of 
the  W est  and  N orth,  and  thus  reduce  the  impov¬ 
erished  North  to  subjection  to  the  slaveholding 
oligarchy  of  the  South.  Its  ultimate  purpose 
was  to  produce  bankruptcy  and  discord  in  the 
North,  that  they  might  more  easily  accomplish 
their  then  purpose,  which  they  expressed  by 
open  action  in  April,  1861. 

In  order  that  gentlemen  may  see  that  I  speak 
by  the  record,  I  send  to  the  Clerk’s  desk  a  vol¬ 
ume  bearing  the  imprint  of  Prichard,  Abbott, 
&  Loomis,  Augusta,  Georgia,  1860,  and  enti¬ 
tled  “Cotton  is  King,  and  Pro-Slavery  Argu¬ 
ments,  comprising  the  Writings  of  Hammond, 
Harper,  Christie,  Stringfellow,  Hodge,  Bledsoe, 
and  Cartwright,  on  this  Important  Subject,  by 
E.  N.  Elliott,  LL.  D.,  president  of  Planters’ 
College,  Mississippi,  with  an  Essay  on  Slavery 
in  the  Light  of  International  Law,  by  the  Edi¬ 
tor.” 

Let  one  of  these  distinguished  men  inform 
the  country  whether  I  am  correct  in  what  I  now 
say. 

The  Clerk  read,  as  follows : 

“Thus  also  was  a  tripartite  alliance  formed  by 
which  the  western  farmer,  the  southern  planter,  and 
the  English  manufacturer  became  united  in  a  com¬ 
mon  bond  of  interest,  the  whole  giving  their  support 
to  the  doctrine  of  free  trade. 

“  This  active  commerce  between  the  W  est  and  South 
soon  caused  a  rivalry  in  the  East,  that  pushed  for¬ 
ward  improvements  by  States  or  corporations,  to  gain 
a  share  in  the  western  trade.  These  improvements, 
as  completed,  gave  to  the  West  a  choice  of  markets, 
so  that  its  farmers  could  elect  whether  to  feed  the 
slave  who  grows  the  cotton  or  the  operatives  who  are 
engaged  in  its  manufacture.  But  this  rivalry  did 
more.  Thecompetition  for  western  products  enhanced 
their  price  and  stimulated  their  more  extended  cul¬ 
tivation.  This  required  an  enlargement  of  the  mar¬ 
kets,  and  the  extension  of  slavery  became  essential 
to  western  prosperity. 

“We  have  not  reached  the  end  of  the  alliance  be¬ 
tween  the  western  farmer  and  southern  planter.  The 
emigration  which  has  been  filling  Iowa  and  Minne¬ 
sota,  and  is  now  rolling  like  a  flood  into  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  is  but  a  repetition  of  what  has  occurred  in 
the  other  western  States  and  Territories.  Agricul¬ 
tural  pursuits  are  highly  remunerative;  and  tens  of 
thousands  of  men  of  moderate  means  or  of  no  means 
are  cheered  along  to  where  none  forbids  them  land  to 
till. 

"For  the  last  few  years  public  improvements  have 


3 


called  for  vastly  more  than  the  usual  share  of  labor 
and  augmented  the  consumption  of  provisions.  The 
foreign  demand  added  to  this  has  increased  their  price 
beyond  what  the  planter  can  afford  to  pay.  For  many 
years  free  labor  and  slave  labor  maintained  an  even 
race  in  their  western  progress.  Of  late  the  freemen 
have  begun  to  lag  behind,  while  slavery  has  advanced 
by  several  degrees  of  longitude.  Free  labor  must  be 
made  to  keep  pace  with  it.  There  is  an  urgent  neces¬ 
sity  for  this.  The  demand  for  cotton  is  increasing  in 
a  ratio  greater  than  can  bo  supplied  by  the  American 
planters,  unless  by  a  corresponding  increased  produc¬ 
tion.  This  increasing  demand  must  be  met,  or  its 
cultivation  will  be  facilitated  elsewhere,  and  the  mo¬ 
nopoly  of  the  planter  in  the  European  markets  bo 
interrupted.  This  can  only  be  effected  by  concen¬ 
trating  the  greatest  possible  number  of  slaves  upon 
the  cotton  plantations.  Hence  they  must  be  supplied 
with  provisions. 

_  “This  is  the  present  aspect  of  the  provision  ques¬ 
tion,  as  it  regards  slavery  extension.  Prices  are  ap¬ 
proximating  the  maximum  point,  beyond  which  our 
provisions  can  be  fed  to  slaves,  unless  there  is  a  cor¬ 
responding  increase  m  the  price  of  cotton.  Such  a 
result  was  not  anticipated  by  southern  statesmen 
when  they  had  succeeded  in  overthrowing  the  pro¬ 
tective  policy,  destroying  the  United  States  Bank,  and 
establishing  the  sub-Treasury  system.  And  why  has 
this  occurred?  The  mines  of  California  prevented  both 
the  free-trade  tariff  (the  tariff  of  1846,  under  which  our 
exports  are  now  made,  approximates  the  free-trade 
principles  very  closely)  and  the  sub-Treasury  scheme 
from  exhausting  the  country  of  the  precious  metals, 
extinguishing  the  circulation  of  bank  notes,  and  re¬ 
ducing  the  prices  of  agricultural  products  to  the  spe¬ 
cie  value.  At  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  N ebraska 
bill,  the  multiplication  of  provisions  by  their  more 
extended  cultivation  was  the  only  measure  left  that 
could  produce  a  reduction  of  prices  and  meet  the  wants 
of  the  planters.  The  Canadian  reciprocity  treaty,  since 
secured,  will  bring  the  products  of  the  British  North 
American  colonies,  free  of  duty,  into  competition  with 
those  or  the  United  States  when  prices  with  us  rule 
high,  and  tend  to  diminish  their  cost.” 

Mr.  KELLEY.  Mr.  Chairman,  as  the  bill 
before  the  House  has,  in  my  judgment,  all  the 
vices  of  that  treaty,  I  shall  propose  the  following 
as  a  substitute  for  it. 

The  Clerk  read,  as  follows : 

Strike  out  all  after  the  enacting  clause  and  insert 
as  follows: 

That  from  and  after  the  17th  of  March,  1866,  there 
shall  be  levied,  collected,  and  paid  on  all  articles 
imported  from  her  Britannic  Majesty’s  possessions 
in  North  America,  that  is  to  say,  from  Canada,  New 
Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  Prince 
Edward’s  Island,  and  the  several  islands  thereunto 
adjacent,  Hudson’s  Bay  Territory,  British  Columbia, 
and  Vancouver's  Island,  the  same  duties  and  rates  of 
duties  which  are  now  imposed  by  law  on  like  articles 
imported  from  other  foreign  countries. 

Mr.  KELLEY.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say 
that  my  substitute  contains  all  the  provisions 
it  should;  that  it  may  not  be  amended  with 
advantage;  but  I  do  say  that  it  is  infinitely 
preferable,  for  every  leading  interest  of  the 
country,  to  the  bill  now  under  consideration. 

Why  should  we  have  a  special  tariff  law  for 
the  British  Provinces  ?  What  have  they  done 
to  win  our  love  ?  Why  should  we  sacrifice  our 
interests  to  protect  or  advance  theirs? 

The  gentleman  from  Vermont  [Mr.  Mor¬ 
rill]  said  in  the  course  of  his  remarks  that 


we  should  not  base  our  action  on  hatred  or 
fear.  I  do  not  propose  to  base  any  of  my  acts 
in  this  House  upon  any  of  the  passions.  I 
mean  to  be  governed  by  cool  judgment. 

But,  sir,  I  remember  when  we  were  in  a  death 
grapple  with  our  insane  brethren  of  the  South, 
the  people  of  these  Provinces  smote  us  first  oh 
one  cheek  and  then  on  the  other ;  and  I  know, 
sir,  if  we  were  prepared  to  forgive  them  seven 
times'  seventy,  their  transgressions  against  us 
had  exceeded  that  number  before  they  organ¬ 
ized  a  raiding  party  and  sent  it  into  the  gentle¬ 
man’s  own  State  to  rob  the  banks  and  mur¬ 
der  the  citizens  who  attempted  to  defend  them. 
Backed  as  they  are  by  the  power  of  England, 
they  are  our  most  dangerous  enemies,  because 
they  are  our  nearest;  and  I  do  not  find  it  laid 
down  even  in  the  Christian  code  of  morals  that 
we  shall  injure  ourselves  and  impoverish  our 
families  and  country  to  benefit  those  who  would 
have  disseminated  poison  among  us,  who  would 
have  burned  our  cities  and  towns,  and  who  did 
all  that  the  devilish  ingenuity  of  the  madmen 
of  the  South  could  suggest  to  injure  us  and 
destroy  our  country. 

They  are  foreigners  to  our  soil,  and  let  us 
regard  them  as  we  do  the  people  of  other  coun¬ 
tries,  as  friends  in  peace  and  enemies  in  war. 
Let  us  legislate  for  them,  as  the  substitute  I 
have  submitted  proposes  to  do,  precisely  as  we 
do  for  the  rest  of  mankind.  I  can  understand, 
sir,  in  the  light  of  the  invaluable  book  front 
which  I  have  had  an  extract  read,  why  every 
provision  of  the  so-called  reciprocity  treaty  was 
adverse  to  our  country.  Both  parties  to  it 
meant  mischief  to  us.  But  I  cannot  understand 
why  a  bill  should  be  reported  by  the  Commit¬ 
tee  of  Ways  and  Means  which  if  adopted  would 
inevitably  strike  down  several  of  the  principal 
or  leading  interests  of.  our  country.  It  might 
well  be  entitled  a  bill  to  destroy  the  fisheries, 
salt-works,  and  lumber  trade  of  the  country, 
and  to  prevent  the  working  of  bituminous  coal¬ 
beds  east  of  the  summit  of  the  Alleghanies  and 
within  the  limits  of  the  United  States.  Should 
it  become  a  law  it  will  ruin  all  those  great 
branches  of  industry. 

The  gentleman  from  Vermont,  in  introdu¬ 
cing  the  bill,  said  with  great  plausibility — more 
plausibility  than  candor,  I  am  sorry  to  say: 

“  Coal  is  a  raw  material,  and  for  every  ton  of  iron 


4 


made  at  least  three  tons  of  bituminous  or  two  of 
anthracite  coal  are  consumed.  It  is  the  motive  power 
of  railroads  and  steamboats  as  well  as  of  manufactu¬ 
ring  establishments.  W e  tax  iron  and  all  other  man¬ 
ufactures  when  produced  and  sold,  and  we  tax  rail¬ 
roads  and  steamboats  on  their  business.  Can  we  not 
afford  to  have  our  coal  free?  _  It  is,  too,  an  article  of 
universal  consumption,  required  in  our  rigorous  cli¬ 
mate  in  large  quantities  by  those  unable  to  clothe 
themselves  in  heavy  and  abundant  woolens  or  thick 
and  costly  furs;  by  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich. 
There  are  hardly  more  reasons  for  a  tax  on  coal  than 
upon  firewood.  In  addition  to  this,  our  own  coal¬ 
fields  are  unsurpassed  in  extent  and  quality  by  any 
in  the  world. 

“But  our  export  to  the  Canadas  of  coal  from  Ohio, 
Virginia,  and  Pennsylvania  bids  fair  to  equal  in 
amount  all  that  we  bring  from  the  Provinces;  the 
value  of  our  exports  in  1864  being  $555,332,  and  that 
of  our  imports  $883,805.  So  that  under  any  circum¬ 
stances  here  is  one  article  which  approaches  the  idea 
of  reciprocity,  and  an  interchange  effects  economy 
in  long  lines  of  freight,  relieving  ourselves  as  well  as 
others  from  positive  loss.” 

Carlyle  tells  us  that  nothing  lies  like  figures, 
although  the  general  proposition  is  that  figures 
never  lie.  I  say,  then,  the  statement  made  is 
as  plausibly  delusive  as  a  statement  each  of  the 
propositions  of  which  is  in  itself  true  can  be. 

Sir,  is  chalk  cheese,  or  cheese  chalk  ?  In 
speaking  about  bituminous  and  anthracite  coal 
we  speak  of  two  distinct  articles,  as  unlike  as 
cheese  and  chalk.  This  bill  does  not  in  any 
way,  or  by  any  possibility,  affect  either  advan¬ 
tageously  or  disadvantageously  the  anthracite 
coal  trade  and  interests  of  the  country. 

Canada  must  have  our  anthracite  coal.  She 
has  none  of  it,  nor  can  she  obtain  it  elsewhere. 
Our  Pennsylvania  anthracite  coal-fields  are  a 
God-given  monopoly,  as  are  the  long-staple 
cotton-fields  of  the  South.  Our  anthracite  in¬ 
terest  asks  no  protection  so  far  as  Canada  is 
concerned.  Were  it  constitutional  to  impose 
an  export  duty  you  might  put  a  light  one  on 
anthracite  coal,  and  the  Canadas  would  still 
buy  it  from  us.  The  $555,332,  worth  of  coal 
exported  under  the  treaty  in  1864  was  anthra¬ 
cite,  and  in  fact,  therefore,  has  no  part  in  a 
discussion  relating  as  this  does  to  the  bitumi¬ 
nous  coal  interests  of  the  country.  The  article 
bears  the  name  of  coal,  and  there  is  no  other 
reason  why  it  should  be  named  in  connection 
with  this  bill. 

From  what  fields,  and  to  what  provincial 
ports,  have  we  exported  bituminous  coal  from 
Ohio  ?  I  ask  the  well-informed  gentlemen 
who  compose  the  Ohio  delegation  to  tell  me 
if  there  be  one  line  of  steamers,  or  any  other 
kind  of  boats,  employed  in  carrying  Ohio  coal 
to  the  British  Provinces.  Why,  sir,  they  could 


not  sell  it  at  the  wharf  in  any  provincial  town 
for  its  cost.  Virginia  coal  go  to  the  British 
Provinces  !  It  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
have  gone  there  save  as  a  curiosity  for  miner- 
alogical  cabinets.  It  never  went  there  as  an 
article  of  commerce. 

The  gist  of  the  gentleman’s  argument  is  that 
we  need  cheap  coal.  Why,  then,  does  he  not 
propose  to  take  the  duty  of  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter  per  ton  off  British  coal,  so  that  we  may 
have  it  still  cheaper  ?  Where  is  his  logic  ? 

Mr.  MORRILL.  Does  the  gentleman  desire 
an  answer? 

Mr.  KELLEY.  Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  MORRILL.  Mr.  Chairman,  in  relation 
to  this  subject  of  coal,  I  confess  that  I  am  not 
clear  that  it  is  proper  to  protect  it  at  all.  I  do 
believe  that  it  is  one  of  those  articles  that  can¬ 
not  be  increased  by  protection,  and  if  it  is  so, 
the  whole  foundation  of  the  doctrine  drops  out, 
in  my  judgment.  I  think,  as  I  stated  in  the 
extracts  which  the  gentleman  has  just  read,  that 
it  is  so  nearly  allied  to  firewood  that  it  deserves 
perhaps  no  protection. 

And  while  I  am  up  allow  me  to  ask  the  gen¬ 
tleman  if  he  has  any  statistics  to  show  that  this 
coal  that  goes  to  Canada  is  not  bituminous  coal. 
Do  they  not  use  it  there  for  the  purpose  of  mak¬ 
ing  gas  ?  Or  do  they  use  anthracite  coal  through¬ 
out  the  Provinces  for  making  gas  ?  I  ask  for 
information. 

Mr.  KELLEY.  I  will  answer  the  question 
of  the  gentleman.  There  may  have  some  small 
quantity  of  Ohio  coal  gone  there  for  experiment 
in  gas  making,  or  occasionally  a  vessel  may 
have  carried  it  as  ballast  to  some  western  town. 
It  is  not  a  recognized  article  of  commerce,  and 
there  is  neither  an  organized  company  for  the 
sale  or  carrying  of  bituminous  coal  from  Ohio, 
Virginia,  or  Pennsylvania,  to  the  Canadas.  I  ad¬ 
mit  that  there  may  be  special  cargoes  shipped 
for  gas  companies  in  some  extreme  western 
parts  of  Canada,  but  that  does  not  touch  the 
argument.  But  while  I  admit  the  fact,  for  the 
argument’s  sake,  I  must  say  that  I  do  not  believe 
it,  for  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  true. 

The  gentleman  from  Vermont  [Mr.  Mor¬ 
rill]  says  the  quantity  of  coal  cannot  be  in¬ 
creased.  Allow  me  to  say  that  I  am  speaking 
for  no  Pennsylvania  interest  to-day.  I  am 
speaking  for  poor,  wasted,  war-trampled  Vir- 


5 


ginia,  for  Maryland,  West  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  for  Georgia,  and  all 
the  southern  States.  They  all  need  our  foster¬ 
ing  care,  and  all  have  inexhaustible  beds  of 
bituminous  coal  that  ought  to  be  productive. 
I  am  not  willing  that  the  rebellious  people  of 
the  South  shall  become  my  political  master  or 
equal  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  until  they 
are  politically  regenerated.  But  I  desire  to 
develop  their  natural  resources,  to  induce  cap¬ 
italists,  laborers,  and  men  of  enterprise  to  go 
and  settle  among  them,  and  build  up  industrious 
and  peaceful  Commonwealths  in  the  hearts  of 
whose  people  loyalty  to  the  Union  shall  dwell. 
It  is  in  these  interests  that  I  speak.  The  bitum¬ 
inous  coal  interest  of  eastern  Pennsylvania  is 
comparatively  unimportant ;  but  we  have  the 
only  paying  bituminous  coal  company  east  of  the 
summit  of  the  Alleghany  mountains.  Thirty- 
odd  millions  of  capital  have  already  been  in¬ 
vested  outside  of  my  State  in  this  branch  of  the 
coal  trade.  Thirty  millions  more  have  been 
invested  in  railroads  to  convey  the  coal  from 
the  mines  to  market,  and  though  it  is  all  unpro¬ 
ductive,  or  nearly  so,  the  owners  do  not  aban¬ 
don  it  as  lost. 

'  They  hope  that,  impelled  by  a  sense  of  jus¬ 
tice,  or  the  pride  of  American  citizenship,  Con¬ 
gress  will  protect  them  against  the  assaults  of 
British  capital  and  ill-paid  labor.  They  have 
waited  in  hope  for  the  day  when  the  infamous 
treaty  which  blasted  their  prospects  should  be 
annulled  and  they  be  permitted  to  enjoy  equal 
chances  with  foreigners  in  our  own  markets. 
Give  them  but  an  even  chance,  burdened  as 
they  are  by  our  war  taxes,  and  all  these  dead 
millions  will  become  productive.  I  challenge 
any  member  of  the  House  to  name  another 
bituminous  coal  company  than  the  Westmore¬ 
land  Company  that  has  paid  or  earned  a  div¬ 
idend  in  the  last  three  years  on  the  eastern 
slope  of  the  mountains.  Give  them  protec¬ 
tion  equal  to  the  taxes,  direct  and  incidental, 
which  you  impose  upon  them,  and  you  will  find 
that  instead  of  the  product  of  1867  being  but 
two  million  tons,  as  it  was  last  year,  we  can 
produce  ninety- five  million  tons,  as  England 
did  in  that  same  year.  Our  fields  are  broader 
and  richer  than  hers  and  those  of  Nova  Scotia 
combined.  They  are  scattered  from  the  mount¬ 
ain  above  the  clouds,  on  the  brows  of  which 


Hooker  and  his  brave  comrades  fought,  east¬ 
ward  and  northward  and  westward  all  over 
our  country.  Give  them  but  that  measure 
of  protection  which  under  the  weight  of  tax¬ 
ation  they  bear  will  secure  an  equal  chance 
in  our  markets,  and  they  will  give  you  an  ade¬ 
quate  supply  of  coal,  and  in  two  or  three  years 
domestic  competition,  while  it  will  by  patron¬ 
izing  your  railroads  and  carrying  companies 
have  filled  your  Treasury  and  enabled  you  to 
reduce  your  scale  of  taxation,  will  bring  down 
the  price  of  coal  in  all  our  markets. 

Pennsylvania,  I  repeat,  has  no  special  inter¬ 
est  in  this  question.  Her  interest  is  that  the 
general  prosperity  of  the  country  shall  be  pro¬ 
moted.  We  want  you  manufacturers  of  New 
England  to  clothe  the  men  who  dig  and  handle 
our  coal;  we  want  you  men  of  the  Northwest 
to  feed  the  men  who  dig  and  handle  our  coal; 
and  Pennsylvania  will  rejoice  in  her  share  of 
the  general  prosperity  which  will  then  bless 
our  country. 

Sir,  I  turn  to  the  fortieth  page  of  the  letter  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  embodying  the 
report  of  the  revenue  commissioners,  and  find 
that  in  the  fiscal  year  1865  there  were  imported, 
under  the  reciprocity  treaty,  13,025,432  bushels, 
being  465,194  tons  of  bituminous  coal,  free  of 
duty,  from  the  British  Provinces.  There  were 
imported  in  the  same  year,  paying  a  duty  of 
$1  25  a  ton,  6,131,608  bushels,  being  218,986 
tons,  from  England.  There  were  exported  of 
domestic  production,  which,  as  I  have  said,  was 
all  or  nearly  all  anthracite,  3,708,264  bushels, 
and  there  were  exporfed  of  foreign  production 
25,536  bushels,  making  nearly  1,000  tons. 

Sir,  will  it  be  said  that  the  vast  coal-beds  of 
this  country  cannot  supply  our  wants,  and  that 
we  cannot  increase  our  production  ?  Or  will  any 
gentleman  say  that  a  duty  of  fifty  cents  is  enough 
to  protect  these  embarrassed  but  important 
interests?  I  ask  gentlemen  to  mark  the  fact, 
that  though  465,194  tons  came  in  under  the 
reciprocity  treaty,  free  of  duty,  from  her  Prov¬ 
inces,  England  was  still  able  to  send  in,  and 
pay  $1  25  duty  per  ton,  the  enormous  amount 
of  218,986  tons.  Is  it  not  apparent  from  these 
facts  that  we  will  bankrupt  every  bituminous 
coal  company  in  the  country  if  we  pass  this  bill? 

Do  gentlemen  say  our  demands  in  this  be¬ 
half  are  exorbitant,  or  ask  why  our  coal  can- 


6 


not  be  sold  cheaply  as  that  of  England  and  the 
Provinces?  I  answer  them  in  part  by  another 
question,  which  is,  do  they  wish  the  American 
miner  to  toil  for  the  wages  given  to  laborers 
in  English  collieries?  Sir,  the  heartlessness 
of  the  capitalists  of  England  was  never  more 
fully  exposed  than  by  the  report  of  the  parlia¬ 
mentary  commission  appointed  to  inquire  into 
the  condition  of  the  mining  population  of  the 
country.  England’s  shame  is  nowhere  written 
in  broader  cr  darker  colors  than  in  that  report, 
and  I  will  not  permit  myself  to  believe  that  any 
member  of  this  House  is  anxious  that  we  should 
emulate  that  page  of  her  history. 

Our  better  wages  for  labor  and  our  heavy 
war  taxes  answer  the  suggestion  thrown  out. 
How  much  England  and  her  American  Prov¬ 
inces  did  to  protract  and  aggravate  the  war  is 
known  to  all.  and  I  am  not  willing  they  should 
derive  advantage  from  their  treachery.  On 
this  subject  I  quote  a  few  lines  from  a  letter 
from  an  intelligent  coal  operator : 

“  It  is  almost  impossible  to  compute  precisely  the 
amount  of  revenue  that  Government  reaps  from  a 
ton  of  bituminous  coal,  but  the  fairest  way  to  get  at 
it  will  be  to  take  the  cost  of  putting  the  article  on 
board  vessel  before  the  war,  (or  in  I860,)  $3  50  per 
ton,  as  compared  with  the  present  cost,  seven  dollars 
per  ton,  maiiing  an  increase  in  the  actual  cost  of 
$3  50  per  ton.  This  increase  is  in  the  main  occa¬ 
sioned  by  the  taxes  which  have  been  levied  in  order 
to  support  the  Government,  (which  we  pay  cheer¬ 
fully:)  and  they  touch  every  article  of  provisions  and 
repairs  about  the  mines  and  railroads,  as  well  as  the 
two  and  a  half  per  cent,  upon  the'  gross  rate  of  trans¬ 
portation  and  five  per  cent,  upon  the  net  earnings 
of  the  carrying  companies,  which,  when  all  summed 
together,  amount  to  very  nearly  if  not  quite  three 
dollars  per  ton.” 

Sir,  we  are  in  a  transition  age  ;  and  here  I 
reply  to  the  remark  of  the  gentleman  from  Ver¬ 
mont  [Mr.  Morrill]  that  coal  ought  not  to  be 
protected.  We  are  in  a  transition  age  in  more 
senses  than  one.  We  are  passing  from  war  to 
peace  and  from  the  age  of  iron  to  the  age  of 
steel.  In  a  few  years,  if  we  foster  our  industry, 
steel  will  supplant  iron  in  almost  all  the  uses  to 
which  it  is  now  applied.  Sir,  coal  and  iron  are 
the  muscles  of  modern  civilization;  and  fire — 
ignited  coal — is  the  material  force  that  is  impel¬ 
ling  us  onward  and  upward.  Had  the  southern 
States  had  equal  mastery  with  us  of  these  ele¬ 
ments,  I  doubt  whether  we  would  yet  have  made 
conquest  over  them.  I  query  whether  the  re¬ 
sult  might  not  have  been  otherwise  than  it  was. 
What  were  Vulcan  and  the  Cyclops  to  an  Amer¬ 
ican  mechanic  handling  a  steam-engine  or  a 


trip-hammer?  We  live  in  a  new  age.  Old  my¬ 
thologies  and  traditions  serve  but  to  hamper  us. 
We  must  adapt  ourselves  to  the  agencies  by 
which  we  are  surrounded  and  the  exigencies  in 
which  we  are  involved. 

Sir,  when  the  consular  wreath  first  graced 
the  brow  of  Napoleon  he  had  only  conquered 
Italy,  which,  in  the  somewhat  boastful  language 
of  the  historian,  extended  “from  the  Alps  to 
the  Papal  dominions, 5  ’  And  what  had  he  done  ? 
Why,  sir,  all  that  Italy  which  he  had  conquered, 
could  it  be  lifted  bodily,  could  be  set  down  com¬ 
fortably  within  the  limits  of  the  State  of  Maine 
or  of  South  Carolina.  He  bad  never  then  com¬ 
manded  so  many  men  as  Burnside  marched 
through  the  city  of  Washington  when  taking 
his  single  corps  to  swell  the  grand  army  of 
Lieutenant  General  Grant  in  the  Wilderness. 
How  was  it  that  we  could  move  such  masses  of 
men,  fight  this  war  over  the  broadest  theater  of 
international  or  civil  war  known  to  history,  and 
conclude  it  in  little  more  than  four  years?  It 
was  because  we  used  coal  and  iron  as  our  mus¬ 
cles,  and  fire — ignited  coal — as  our  force.  These 
gave  us  New  Orleans,  and  battered  down  Fort 
Fisher. 

And  I  may  add  that,  had  there  been  a  well- 
stocked  railroad  from  Moscow  to  the  Rhine, 
Napoleon’s  retreat  would  have  been  marked  by 
fewer  horrors,  and  the  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century  would  not  probably  have  read  as  it  does. 

And  if  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  o^ 
Ways  and  Means  desires  to  secure  us  a  respecta 
ble  position  among  the  nations,  he  will  not  strike 
down,  disparage,  or  neglect  the  coal  and  iron 
interests  of  the  country,  to  subserve  any  inter¬ 
est  of  his  own,  his  State,  or  section.  They  are 
the  primordial  elements  of  our  greatness,  and 
should  be  cherished  above  all  others.  Look 
at  their  power.  Behold  a  woman  with  an  iron 
machine  before  her  moving  noiselessly ;  it  is 
impelled  by  coal  and  iron  fashioned  into  an 
engine,  and  is  doing  more  work  in  one  day 
than  one  hundred  such  women  could  have  done 
in  a  week  one  century  ago.  Or  see  yonder 
pallid  little  girl  attending  such  a  machine ;  she 
will  produce  results  in  one  day  that  would  have 
taxed  the  industry  of  her  grandmother  for  a 
year.  The  power  of  those  delicate  people  is 
not  superhuman ;  it  is  coal  and  iron  that  pro¬ 
duce  these  more  than  magical  results. 


7 


♦ 


The  gentleman  doubts  whether  the  produc¬ 
tion  of  coal  can  or  should  be  stimulated,  and  is 
willing  we  should  depend  on  our  most  powerful 
and  our  nearest  enemies  for  this  elemental  sub¬ 
stance.  The  country  wall  not  respond  to  such 
purblind  patriotism.  And  the  passage  of  this 
bill  will  reduce  us  to  such  abject  dependence. 

In  eleven  months  of  1865 — I  do  not  go  back 
to  1864,  but  take  the  first  eleven  months  of 
1865,  of  last  year — sixty-six  per  cent,  of  the 
bituminous  coal  consumed  in  the  States  east 
of  Pennsylvania  was  mined  by  the  laborers  of 
Britain  or  of  the  British  Provinces.  Let  me 
prove  this.  The  amount  of  bituminous  coal 
received  at  Boston  and  New  York  from  the 
British  Provinces,  free  of  duty,  to  the  1st  of 
December,  1865,  was  392, 158  tons.  The  amount 
of  English  coal  received  at  the  same  points 
during  the  same  period,  which  paid  a  tax  of 
$1  25  per  ton,  was  103,723;  total  foreign  coal, 
495,891  tons.  The  amount  of  coal  produced 
in  the  United  States,  delivered  during  the  same 
period  at  the  same  points,  was  but  287,874 
tons  ;  balance  in  favor  of  foreign  coal,  208,874 
tons — one  coal  company  in  the  British  Prov¬ 
inces  declaring  dividends  of  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  per  cent,  in  a  year,  and  but  one  of 
the  hundreds  of  companies  in  our  country  able 
to  declare  a  dividend  of  one  per  cent.,  making 
a  contrast  so  unfavorable  to  us  that  many  of 
our  enterprising  people,  as  was  shown  yester¬ 
day  by  the  gentleman  from  Maryland,  [Mr.  F. 
Thomas,]  abandoned  their  country  and  em¬ 
barked  their  capital  in  the  coal  regions  of  Nova 
Scotia.  Can  we  strengthen  our  country  by  ex¬ 
porting  enterprise,  industry,  and  capital  ? 

And  is  it  not  marvelous  that  such  an  exhibit 
against  us  can  be  made,  in  view  of  the  facts 
that  our  bituminous  coal-fields  are  so  much 
broader  and  richer  than  those  of  England  and 
Nova  Scotia  combined,  and  that  we  depend  for 
the  support  of  our  Government  and  its  credit 
upon  taxes  derived  in  great  part  from  the  forge, 
the  furnace,  the  foundery,  the  railroad,  the 
machine  shop,  the  coal-bed,  and  iron  mines? 
Are  gentlemen  willing  to  perpetuate  the  malign 
influence  that  has  produced  a  state  of  facts  so 
disparaging  to  our  intelligence,  patriotism,  and 
interests?  No;  I  believe  they  will  agree  with 
me  that  the  time  has  arrived  when  we  should 
develop  our  own  resources,  foster  American 


labor,  and  guard  our  own  intei  ssts.  One  effect 
of  the  reciprocity  treaty  has  been  to  send  to 
Canada  one  million  five  hundred  thousand  im¬ 
migrants  who,  but  for  the  advantages  it  gave 
the  Provinces  over  us,  would  have  swelled  our 
population.  Let  us  now,  by  taking  care  of  our 
own  people,  induce  them  to  come  and  share 
our  burdens  and  blessings. 

Sir,  I  have  said  that  I  would  not  legislate 
with  reference  to  the  Provinces  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  fear  or  hate.  It  would  indeed  be  unwise, 
for  these  people  will  yet  be  our  countrymen. 
When  British  free  trade,  preventing,  as  it  ever 
does  to  the  people  of  British  Provinces,  the 
diversification  of  their  industry,  shall  have 
impoverished  their  soil  and  repelled  immi¬ 
gration  from  their  shores;  when  that  system 
of  British  free  trade  which  keeps  those  upon 
whom  it  is  inflicted  at  hard  labor  in  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  white  crops,  has  impoverished  their 
fields  as  it  has  those  of  our  old  States,  and 
reduced  them  to  oft-recurring  bankruptcy,  as 
it  inevitably  must ;  and  when  adequate  protec¬ 
tion  to  our  labor  shall  have  developed  our 
boundless  resources,  and  generous  wages  in¬ 
vited  to  our  shores  the  skilled  laborers  of  the 
world,  the  contrast  between  our  condition  and 
that  of  the  people  of  the  Provinces  will  impel 
them  to  unite  their  destiny  with  ours,  and  then 
I  shall,  or  my  posterity  will,  be  ready  to  greet 
them  cordially  as  compatriots. 

Sir,  what  do  we  get  in  return  for  the  immeas¬ 
urable  degradation  proposed  by  this  bill  ?  Why, 
sir,  we  get  the  right  to  navigate  the  St.  Law¬ 
rence  and  to  patronize  the  canals  and  railroads 
of  Canada,  and  the  right  to  cut  lumber — mark 
you,  “the  right  to  cut  lumber  or  timber  of  any 
kind  on  that  portion  of  the  American  territory 
in  the  State  of  Maine  watered  by  the  river  St. 
John  and  its  tributaries,  and  when  floated  down 
that  river  to  the  sea  to  ship  the  same  to  the 
United  States  from  the  Province  of  New  Bruns¬ 
wick  without  any  export  duty  or  other  duty.” 
I  take  it,  sir,  that  these  rights  will  not  be  long 
-withheld  from  us,  even  if  we  determine  to  give 
the  American  laborer  a  fair  field  in  which  to  com¬ 
pete  with  those  of  England  and  her  Provinces. 

Let  me  pause  fora  moment  to  say  to  the  gen¬ 
tleman  that  his  statement  of  the  amount  of  coal 
imported  and  exported  is  more  plausible  than 
candid  in  a  respect  not  yet  noticed.  It  is  ap- 


8 


♦ 


praised  at  ad  valorem  prices,  which  are  specie 
prices  in  the  land  from  which  it  is  exported  ; 
while  ours  is  calculated  at  currency  prices. 
This  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  making  the 
calculations  of  relative  quantities. 

But  to  resume  and  conclude.  Sir,  to  get 
these  rights  we  give  precisely  the  same  rights 
in  larger  degree  and  with  greater  advantage 
to  the  British  colonists.  We  will  therefore 
get  them  without  this  bill.  I  do  not  wish  to 
acquire  them  by  force.  I  am  anxious  to  see 
them  granted  reciprocally  by  our  country  and 
the  Provinces  ;  but  not  as  this  bill  does  it. 

It  can  be  done  by  treaty  or  by  act  of  Con¬ 
gress  ;  but  be  that  as  it  may,  do  not  let  us  agree 
to  destroy  the  fisheries  of  New  England,  the 
salt-works  of  West  Virginia,  the  lumber  busi¬ 
ness  of  the  Northwest  and  of  Maine,  and  the 
bituminous  coal-works  of  the  whole  country, 
as  the  price  of  the  privilege  of  yielding  more 
specifically  and  in  kind  than  we  get. 


No,  sir;  let  us  maintain  our  rights,  our  in¬ 
terests,  and  our  country ’  s  dignity.  Letus  go  on 
our  way  as  though  there  were  no  British  Prov¬ 
inces  ;  and  the  mere  action  of  British  legisla¬ 
tion,  constraining  their  people,  as  I  have  already 
said,  to  unrequited  agricultural  labor,  will  make 
them  sigh  for  our  prosperity.  And  then  we 
shall  find  that  the  American  Constitution  is  as 
elastic  as  it  is  grand  and  enduring.  It  has  ex¬ 
panded  to  embrace  immense  tracts  of  territory. 

Our  flag  has  swept  from  the  limits  of  the  ori¬ 
ginal  thirteen  States  to  the  Pacific,  and  south¬ 
ward  to  the  Rio  Grande;  and,  sir,  when  the 
people  of  Canada  shall,  as  they  will  if  we  pro¬ 
tect  our  labor,  ask  to  unite  their  destinies  with 
ours,  the  world  will  receive  additional  proof 
that  when  Providence  impelled  our  fathers  to 
the  creation  of  our  Government,  it  gave  them 
the  wisdom  to  bless  us  with  a  Constitution  which  ^ 
is  the  fit  canopy  of  a  continent,  and  will  yet 
crown  one. 


Printed  at  the  Congressional  Globe  Offiee. 


